Reciprocal relations between positive alcohol expectancies and peer use on adolescent drinking: An accelerated autoregressive cross-lagged model using the NCANDA sample

Sex differences in alcohol and other substance use in sexual contexts among adolescents: an observational study

Background There is a co-occurrence of adolescents' substance use and sexual practices, with an important impact on their health and health behaviours; however, limited research is conducted with adolescents. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of substance use (alcohol and/or other substances) in sexual contexts and to identify its associated factors among adolescents, comparing boys and girls. Methods Cross-sectional study with data from 6352 adolescents aged 14----18years from the DESKcohort project. Prevalence of alcohol and/or other substance use in sexual contexts (OSUSC) stratified by sex were calculated, according to axes of inequality, psychosocial factors, and sexual health and health variables. Poisson regression models with robust variance were calculated to analyse potential associations with independent variables. Results Girls (51.4% of the sample) reported a higher prevalence of alcohol use in sexual contexts than boys (43.9% vs 33.9%, P Conclusions These findings suggest that substance use in sexual contexts reflects a broader pattern of co-occurring risky behaviours rather than intentional sexualised substance use. Some vulnerable groups include girls, adolescents with a minority sexual orientation, and students with disadvantaged SEPs. These findings underscore the need for holistic interventions targeting adolescents' health, addressing substance use and sexual risk behaviours simultaneously to reduce potential consequences such as unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

Mother-child dynamics: Examining reciprocal relations between parental knowledge, child disclosure, parental legitimacy beliefs, and adolescent alcohol use

Early adolescent alcohol use is associated with adverse developmental and health outcomes. Parental knowledge can prevent or delay substance use, while youth behaviors may concurrently influence parenting. More research is needed to examine the role of youth's perceptions of legitimacy of parental authority. This multi-informant study examined prospective bidirectional effects between parental knowledge and child disclosure alongside youth-reported alcohol use and perceived legitimacy of parental authority. Data were analyzed across three waves in a community sample of 304 mother-child dyads. A cross-lagged panel model was estimated using repeated measures of adolescent alcohol use, perceived legitimacy of parental authority, parental knowledge, and child disclosure. Positive reciprocal associations were found in early adolescence between child disclosure and both parental knowledge and perceived legitimacy of parental authority. Legitimacy of parental authority negatively predicted alcohol use across adolescence. Child alcohol use also negatively predicted parental knowledge among mothers in later adolescence. Effects were not reciprocated nor sustained. Novel findings demonstrate that the parental legitimacy beliefs predict reduced alcohol use and have a reciprocal association with child disclosure. Clinical implications to mitigate youth alcohol use initiation, by enhancing parental self-efficacy and positive parenting, are discussed.

The impact of the peer effect on adolescent drinking behavior: instrumental-variable evidence from China

Background

Governments around the world have taken measures to limit adolescent drinking, however, rates are still alarmingly high. However, most of these measures ignore the peer effect of drinking among adolescents. Previous studies have not sufficiently considered the reciprocal relationship between adolescent alcohol consumption and peer alcohol consumption, which may lead to an overestimation of the peer effect and mask underlying issues. Good instrumental variables are powerful but rare tools to address these issues.

Objective

This paper aims to correctly estimate the peer effect of drinking on adolescent drinking behavior in China.

Methods

Owing to the detailed information of household background in the dataset of our survey, we were able to use the drinking behaviors of peers' fathers and their beliefs about the health risks of alcohol as instrumental variables, which are more powerful than school-average instrumental variables. We collected data from the 2017 Health and Nutrition Panel survey, which surveyed 10,772 primary school students from 59 urban migrant and 60 rural public schools.

Results

The instrumental variable method estimation revealed that peer drinking significantly influences adolescent drinking behavior, with adolescents who have peers who drink alcohol being 10.5% points (2 stage least square, i.e., 2SLS, full sample estimation) more likely to engage in drinking compared to those without such peers. Furthermore, the effect differs significantly between migrant and rural adolescents.

Conclusion

The study found that parental care plays a significant role in the degree of peer effect, with the absence of parental care being a key factor in the presence of the peer effect.

Social influences on alcohol outcome expectancy development from childhood to young adulthood: A narrative review

Purpose of Review

Alcohol outcome expectancies emerge in early childhood, develop throughout adolescence, and predict alcohol outcomes well into adulthood. Social factors shape how expectancies are learned in myriad ways, yet such social learning influences seldom are examined in the context of developmental factors. This review summarized literature on the social origins of alcohol expectancies through vicarious (observational) and experiential (direct) alcohol-related learning from childhood to young adulthood within a social learning framework.

Recent Findings

Young children primarily endorse negative expectancies, which decline rapidly with age amidst escalations in positive expectancies across adolescence. Parents and peers can contribute to vicarious learning about alcohol and facilitate experiential learning in different ways and to varying degrees across development. Media and social media, which children are increasingly exposed to as they mature, often depict alcohol-outcome relations that may further contribute to expectancy development in later adolescence and young adulthood.

Summary

Social influences on alcohol expectancy learning are complex and change over time, although this dynamic complexity typically is not depicted in extant literature. Developmentally-informed research capturing co-occurring shifts in social influences and alcohol expectancies is needed.

Characterizing Alcohol Expectancies in the ABCD Study: Associations with Sociodemographic Factors, the Immediate Social Environment, and Genetic Propensities

Alcohol expectancies (AEs) are associated with likelihood of alcohol initiation and subsequent alcohol use disorders. It is unclear whether genetic predisposition to alcohol use and/or related traits contributes to shaping how one expects to feel when drinking alcohol. We used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to examine associations between genetic propensities (i.e., polygenic risk for problematic alcohol use, depression, risk-taking), sociodemographic factors (i.e., parent income), and the immediate social environment (i.e., peer use and disapproval toward alcohol) and positive and negative AEs in alcohol-naïve children (max analytic N = 5,352). Mixed-effect regression models showed that age, parental education, importance of the child's religious beliefs, adverse childhood experiences, and peer disapproval of alcohol use were associated with positive and/or negative AEs, to varying degrees. Overall, our results suggest several familial and psychosocial predictors of AEs but little evidence of contributions from polygenic liability to problematic alcohol use or related phenotypes.

A developmental cascade model of adolescent peer relationships, substance use, and psychopathological symptoms from child maltreatment

INTRODUCTION

Although previous studies have demonstrated high intercorrelations among deviant peer affiliation, substance use, externalizing and internalizing symptoms in adolescence, these studies have been limited because they did not examine 1) the associations over time by assuming one particular sequence; and 2) child maltreatment effects.

METHODS

This study included 617 adolescents (54.3 % girls, 55.6 % Black) at-risk of maltreatment living in the U.S and primarily low-income. Deviant peer affiliation was assessed at ages 12, 14, and 16 using 13 items from the modified version of the Youth Risk Behavior and Monitoring the Future Survey. Externalizing and internalizing symptoms were measured at ages 12, 14, and 16 using the Child Behavior Checklist. The number of substances used (ages 12, 14, 16, and 18) were created by summing the self-reported alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use. Each type of maltreatment (birth to age 12) was assessed using the self-report.

RESULTS

Autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation modeling explained the stability effects within each domain, as well as how different maltreatment types affect diverse developmental processes. Cross-lagged results showed the socialization effects of peers on substance use, whereas the peer selection effects on externalizing symptoms. Physical abuse was only associated with externalizing symptoms, while sexual abuse was associated with both externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Additionally, emotional abuse was associated with deviant peer affiliation and substance use.

CONCLUSIONS

Identifying the underlying reciprocal processes offers a deeper understanding of peer relationships in the substance use and externalizing symptoms among at-risk of maltreatment sample.

Examining the Moderating Role of Behavioral Willingness on Indirect Relations Between Alcohol Expectancies and Negative Consequences

AIMS

Alcohol expectancies are directly linked to alcohol misuse and indirectly linked to negative consequences via use. Likewise, willingness to experience negative consequences imparts direct risk for negative consequences and may represent an important individual difference when predicting risky alcohol use. To date, no studies have examined how willingness to experience consequences may moderate relations between expectancies and alcohol use in the prediction of negative consequences. It is possible that those who expect appetitive effects and are high in willingness may discount the severity of negative consequences and drink more to realize positive expectations. Alternatively, those who expect aversive alcohol-related effects and are high in willingness may drink more to overcome negative experiences.

METHODS

The current study tested these hypotheses in a sample of undergraduate students (N = 657) from a larger study focused on alcohol and cannabis co-use.

RESULTS

Findings suggested that high-arousal positive expectancies (e.g. sociable, lively, talkative) function as a risk factor for negative consequences indirectly through heavier drinking, whereas low-arousal positive (e.g. mellow, relaxed) expectancies served as an indirect protective factor against negative consequences through lighter drinking. Willingness to experience negative consequences had direct and indirect effects on negative consequences through drinking but did not interact with alcohol expectancies.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study demonstrates the utility of assessing the full range of alcohol expectancies and behavioral willingness in continued research into the dynamic nature of antecedents to alcohol misuse and negative consequences.

The prospective interactive effects of alcohol expectancies and subjective response on future drinking behavior

Although alcohol expectancies and subjective response are independent predictors of drinking, social-cognitive theory suggests that expectancies may distort one's subjective response, creating discrepancies between expected and actual alcohol effects. A recent cross-sectional study found that unmet expectancies (using difference scores) were associated with heavier drinking. However, cross-sectional data cannot establish temporal precedence, and using difference scores ignores important conditional main effects. As such, the current study sought to evaluate how expectancy-subjective response discrepancies predict future drinking using prospective data and an interaction approach. Participants (N = 258) were randomly assigned to consume alcohol (target BAC = .08%) within a placebo-controlled alcohol administration session. Alcohol expectancies and subjective response were assessed across the full valence by arousal affective space using parallel measures. Results indicated a significant high arousal positive (HIGH+) interaction, such that, as HIGH+ expectancies increased, individuals at low and mean levels of HIGH+ subjective response drank more heavily 12 months later. There was also a significant high arousal negative (HIGH-) interaction with a similar pattern of moderated effects. No interactions were found for low arousal effects. These results indicate that individuals with unmet HIGH+ and HIGH- expectancies drink more heavily 12 months later, controlling for prior drinking. This suggests that clinicians may consider recommending specific interventions (e.g., expectancy challenges vs. pharmacotherapy) based upon an individual's levels of expectancies and subjective response to optimize intervention efficacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Racial differences in early adolescent substance use: Child abuse types and family/peer substance use as predictors

This study examined the associations among child abuse types, family/peer substance use, and adolescent substance use, as well as testing whether these associations vary by race. The sample was derived from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (N = 562). Child sexual abuse, family substance use, and peer substance use were associated with a higher likelihood of adolescent substance use. Sexual abuse was more strongly associated with substance use in Black youth than in White youth. Conversely, greater peer substance use had a stronger association with substance use in White youth than in Black youth.

Limitations of cross-lagged panel models in addiction research and alternative models: An empirical example using project MATCH

OBJECTIVE

Models of addiction often posit bidirectional and dynamic associations between constructs relevant to the etiology and maintenance of addictive behaviors. The cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) is commonly used in addiction research but has been critiqued for not appropriately adjusting for between-person variance. Alternatives to the CLPM have been suggested but remain underutilized. The primary purpose of this article is to highlight interpretational limitations of the CLPM and to provide examples of alternative models.

METHOD

We specified CLPM, Random-Intercept CLPM, and a Latent Curve Model with Structured Residuals using four waves of data from Project MATCH (n = 1,201). We modeled prospective relations among depression symptoms and temptation to drink. Substantive inferences and assumptions across models were compared.

RESULTS

The CLPM provided the most evidence of significant cross-lagged paths but the poorest fit to the data compared to other models. Alternative models found little evidence of prospective within-person associations, and more evidence for between-person associations and wave-specific within-person relations between depression symptoms and temptation to drink.

CONCLUSIONS

This study highlights shortcomings of the CLPM and details alternative models to consider. Addiction researchers should consider alternatives to the CLPM to more optimally delineate relations among constructs across time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescents' Frequency of Alcohol Use and Problems from Alcohol Abuse: Integrating Dating Partners with Parent and Peer Influences

Despite the centrality of dating relationships for teens, it is unclear whether the influence of romantic partners' alcohol use on adolescents' under-age drinking is distinct from the influence of peers and parents. To address this gap, this study used longitudinal data from a population-based sample of 825 adolescents (49% male, 51% female), ages 12 to 19. Adolescents completed a survey using laptops for privacy, and a parent completed a survey separately. Ordinary least squares and logistic regression models assessed alcohol use frequency and alcohol problems and included dating partners' drinking, adolescents' prior drinking, peers' drinking, parents' substance use, parental monitoring, and sociodemographic background characteristics. Alcohol use frequency and alcohol problems were influenced by dating partners' alcohol use and dating partners' influence was stronger on older adolescents and male adolescents. The study results are useful for public health messaging and prevention efforts by demonstrating the influence of parents, peers, and dating partners on teens' alcohol use.

Alcohol and Cannabis Use Milestones in Diverse Urban Adolescents: Associations with Demographics, Parental Rule Setting, Sibling and Peer Deviancy, and Outcome Expectancies

Objective: Alcohol and cannabis use progression milestones in adolescence (such as ages at first use, first intoxication and at onset of regular use) may inform the development of alcohol and cannabis use disorders. Although parent, sibling, and peer behavior and alcohol-related cognitions have been shown to be associated with alcohol milestone attainment, findings have been mixed; further, those factors' associations with cannabis use milestones are unknown. This study examined whether progression through such milestones differed as a function of perceived peer/sibling deviancy, parental rule-setting, and substance use outcome expectancies in a racially diverse adolescent sample.Methods: Data were drawn from a two-wave longitudinal health survey study of 9-11^th graders (n = 355 for the current analyses; M_age=15.94 [SD = 1.07]; 44% male; 43% Black; 22% White; 18% Asian; 17% Multiracial; 10% Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity) at an urban high school. A series of logistic and proportional hazards regressions examined associations of peer/sibling deviancy, parental rule-setting, and outcome expectancies with age and attainment of alcohol/cannabis use milestones.Results: For both alcohol and cannabis, greater peer deviancy and positive expectancies were associated with higher odds of milestone attainment, while negative expectancies were associated with slower progression through milestones. For cannabis, but not alcohol, greater perceived sibling deviancy was positively associated with milestone attainment, while negative expectancies were associated with lower odds of milestone attainment.Conclusions: Perceived deviant behavior by peers and siblings, in addition to adolescents' expectancies for either alcohol or cannabis use, is associated with attainment and progression through key adolescent substance use milestones.

Psychosocial predictors of substance use in adolescents and young adults: Longitudinal risk and protective factors

Many psychosocial factors have been implicated in the onset and escalation of substance use in adolescence and young adulthood. Typically, each factor explains a small amount of the variance in substance use outcomes, and effects are typically applied across a broad range of ages or computed from cross-sectional data. The current study evaluated the association of factors including social influence (e.g., peer substance use), cognitive features (e.g., alcohol expectancies), and personality and emotional characteristics (e.g., impulsivity and typical responses to stress) in substance use throughout adolescence and emerging adulthood (ages 13-25; N = 798). Mixed-effects models tailored for the accelerated longitudinal design employed in this study were constructed with psychosocial and developmental factors predicting alcohol and cannabis use. As most participants in the sample exhibited little or no substance use at baseline by design, we excluded baseline assessments and examined data from follow-up years 1, 2, 3, and 4. Interactions between age cohort, change in age, and psychosocial predictors of substance use revealed differing associations over the developmental window for alcohol and cannabis use. For example, positive alcohol expectancies and sensation seeking were most strongly associated with greater drinking after age 18, whereas sensation seeking was associated with increased cannabis use as early as age 15. Higher emotion regulation skills led to less cannabis use in younger ages (i.e., shallower slopes below age 17), but this protective effect diminished after age 17. Results highlight developmentally important factors that differentially contribute to substance use in adolescence and young adulthood. We also demonstrate the importance of developmentally sensitive analyses that maximize the value of data from accelerated longitudinal designs.

Greater loss of face and family honor values are associated with greater positive expectancies and substance abuse among Middle Eastern/Northern African U.S. college students

BACKGROUND

Traditional cultural orientation is protective against substance use for Asian Americans and Latinos. However, little empirical research has examined traditional cultural values and substance use among Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) individuals. MENA cultures tend to emphasize maintaining family honor and personal social integrity, which may influence substance use cognitions and behavior.

OBJECTIVE

Test whether loss of face and family honor influenced risky alcohol/cannabis use via positive expectancies. We expected that greater loss of face and family honor values would predict lower positive expectancies and risky substance use.

METHODS

MENA college students (N = 246; 58.6% women) were recruited via Qualtrics Panels and completed an online survey. We tested path models, estimating direct and indirect effects of cultural predictors, adjusting for age, gender, generation status, marital status, and living situation. Substance use was modeled as risk categories (low- versus high-risk) and as count-type outcomes using zero-inflated models.

RESULTS

Greater family honor values predicted higher positive alcohol and cannabis expectancies (b = .24-.32, p < .001). Greater loss of face values also predicted more positive expectancies (b = .22-.24, p < .001). Mediation analysis generally indicated that cultural factors were indirectly associated with risky use via positive expectancies.

CONCLUSION

MENA college students' greater family honor and loss of face values are associated with greater alcohol and cannabis use, in part through positive expectancies. Cultural pressures may enhance the perceived benefits of alcohol and cannabis use. Substance use intervention programs should integrate MENA college students, and address family honor and loss of face as culturally-salient risk indices.

Do Alcohol Consequences Serve as Teachable Moments? A Test of Between- and Within-Person Reciprocal Effects From College Age to Adulthood

OBJECTIVE

Several studies find between-person reciprocal relations between adolescent/college drinking and positive expectancies. However, drinking and expectancies from college into adulthood are largely unstudied, as are within-person associations. During these age periods, negative alcohol consequences may represent "teachable moments" via expectancy change. The current study tested the reciprocal effects of drinking, negative consequences, and expectancies from college age to adulthood.

METHOD

Using data from a longitudinal study focused on familial alcohol disorder, age bands were created to model effects from college age (18-22) to young adulthood (23-28) and adulthood (29-34). Participants (N = 420) reported on their drinking, negative consequences, and expectancies across three waves (1995-2010).

RESULTS

Negative consequences did not predict negative expectancies, but the random intercepts of the two were highly related. Young adult negative consequences predicted a within-person increase in adult heavy drinking. A within-person increase in college age negative expectancies indirectly predicted a within-person decrease in adult negative consequences through reduced young adult drinking, whereas within-person increases in college age positive expectancies indirectly predicted a within-person increase in adult negative consequences through heavier young adult drinking.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that negative consequences were related to trait-level negative expectancies, even though prospective effects were not observed. Findings also suggest that college age negative expectancies were protective against future use and consequences, and this effect was unique to college age.

The role of sex in the persistent effects of adolescent alcohol exposure on behavior and neurobiology in rodents

Alcohol drinking is often initiated during adolescence, and this frequently escalates to binge drinking. As adolescence is also a period of dynamic neurodevelopment, preclinical evidence has highlighted that some of the consequences of binge drinking can be long lasting with deficits persisting into adulthood in a variety of cognitive-behavioral tasks. However, while the majority of preclinical work to date has been performed in male rodents, the rapid increase in binge drinking in adolescent female humans has re-emphasized the importance of addressing alcohol effects in the context of sex as a biological variable. Here we review several of the consequences of adolescent ethanol exposure in light of sex as a critical biological variable. While some alcohol-induced outcomes, such as non-social approach/avoidance behavior and sleep disruption, are generally consistent across sex, others are variable across sex, such as alcohol drinking, sensitivity to ethanol, social anxiety-like behavior, and induction of proinflammatory markers.

Perceived friendship and binge drinking in young adults: A study of the Human Connectome Project data

BACKGROUND

Peer influences figure prominently in young adult binge drinking. Women have trended to show a level of alcohol use on par with men during the last decades. It would be of interest to investigate the neural processes of social cognition that may underlie binge drinking and the potential sex differences.

METHODS

Here, we examined the data of the Human Connectome Project where we identified a total of 175 binge drinkers (125 men) and 285 non-binge drinkers (97 men) performing a social cognition task during brain imaging. We analyzed the imaging data with published routines and evaluated the results at a corrected threshold.

RESULTS

Both male and female binge relative to non-binge drinkers showed higher perceived friendship. Binge relative to non-binge drinkers demonstrated diminished activations in the anterior medial orbitofrontal cortex (amOFC) during perception of social vs. random interaction, with a more prominent effect size in women. Further, whole-brain regression identified activity of the right posterior insula (rPI) in negative correlation with perceived friendship score in non-binge drinking women. Post-hoc analyses showed significant correlation of rPI activity with perceived friendship, amOFC activity, and a summary measure of alcohol use severity identified by principal component analysis, across all subjects. Mediation and path analysis demonstrated a significant model: amOFC activity → rPI activity → perceived friendship → severity of alcohol use.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings support peer influences on binge drinking and suggest neural correlates that may relate altered social cognitive processing to alcohol misuse in young adults.

Peer influence in adolescent drinking behavior: A meta-analysis of stochastic actor-based modeling studies

Objectives

To measure the effects of peer influence and peer selection on drinking behavior in adolescence through a rigorous statistical approach designed to unravel these interrelated processes.

Methods

We conducted systematic searches of electronic databases, thesis collections and conference proceedings to identify studies that used longitudinal network design and stochastic actor-oriented modeling to analyze drinking behavior in adolescents. Parameter estimates collected from individual studies were analyzed using multilevel random-effects models.

Results

We identified 26 articles eligible for meta-analysis. Meta-analyses for different specifications of the peer influence effect were conducted separately. The peer influence effect was positive for every specification: for average similarity (avSim) mean log odds ratio was 1.27 with 95% confidence interval [0.04; 2.49]; for total similarity (totSim) 0.46 (95% CI = [0.44; 0.48]), and for average alter (avAlt) 0.70 (95% CI = [-0.01; 1.41]). The peer selection effect (simX) was also positive: 0.46 (95% CI = [0.28; 0.63]). Conversion log odds ratio values to Cohen’s d gives estimates from 0.25 to 0.70, which is considered as medium to large effect.

Conclusions

Advances in methodology for social network analysis have made it possible to accurately estimate peer influence effects free from peer selection effects. More research is necessary to clarify the roles of age, gender, and individual susceptibility on the changing behavior of adolescents under the influence of their peers. Understanding the effects of peer influence should inform practitioners and policy makers to design and deliver more effective prevention programs.

The Relationship between Early Alcohol Use Behaviors and Adolescent Pubertal and Psychosocial Development: A Latent Growth Analysis

OBJECTIVE

The present longitudinal study examines how age of alcohol initiation and regular use (weekly drinking for ≥6 months) relates to adolescent physiological development, social behaviors, psychological functioning, and substance use patterns. Method: Data are drawn from a prospective sample of 295 youth (42% female) who completed a 15-year longitudinal study. The current investigation uses data collected at 4 timepoints from ages 12-19. Results: Latent growth modeling revealed earlier age of alcohol initiation is associated with (1) a more advanced stage of pubertal development, more self-reported dating experience, and greater externalizing behaviors at ages 12-13 (study entry); (2) a slower rate of change in pubertal development; and (3) greater rate of increase in externalizing and internalizing symptoms from ages 12 to 19. These relationships were not moderated by gender. Conclusion: Early alcohol initiation appears to be associated with early onset pubertal development and dating behaviors. Over time, early alcohol use behaviors may delay pubertal development while exacerbating psychological risk behaviors (i.e. externalizing and internalizing behaviors). These findings suggest the importance of delaying alcohol initiation and may be beneficial for improving existing adolescent substance use prevention efforts.

Prevalence and Correlates of Alcohol Consumption among Hill-Tribe Adolescents below the Legal Drinking Age-A Community-based Cross-Sectional Study in Northern Thailand

Alcohol drinking has been prevalent among various hill tribes of northern Thailand due to their distinctively different lifestyles, traditions, cultures and beliefs than the general Thai population; the majority of these traditions involve annual rounds of customary rituals that make alcohol abundantly accessible to all age groups. To study the prevalence and predictors of alcohol use, a community-based analytical cross-sectional study was conducted between October 2017-September 2018 among 480 sampled adolescents aged 12 through 18 years drawn by stratified random sampling. A proprietary questionnaire developed by the researchers was used to collect the data which were analyzed using binary logistic regression. The prevalence of alcohol use in the previous 30 days was 46.7%. Drinking predictors were: having at least a drinking parent, drinking peers, ever been sent to buy alcohol, smoking, cordial relationship with peers, gambling, family violence experience, stress and leisure time company. Therefore, our results suggest that prevention interventions should be designed with a focus on discouraging parents from sending children to buy alcohol and drinking or smoking in their presence; to reduce both social and commercial access to alcohol, age limits should be imposed on alcohol intake at all ceremonious events, while strictly reinforcing the law that prohibits selling alcohol to minors.

Toward a unifying theory of dysregulated behaviors

Dysregulated behaviors, defined as active behaviors that have short-term benefits but cause serious recurrent long-term distress or impairment to the individual and/or those around them, include behaviors such as suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injury, aggression, and substance use. These behaviors are common and costly to the individual, their friends and family, and society. Despite similar etiological models and interventions, dysregulated behaviors have largely been studied in isolation from one another. The goals of this paper were to a) define dysregulated behaviors as a coherent class of behaviors, b) review the prevalence and consequences of dysregulated behaviors, c) outline how dysregulated behaviors fit into current models of psychopathology, and d) describe the key questions to be addressed by future research in this area. It is argued that integrating across theories of discrete dysregulated behaviors can help provide aid in the development of etiological models, which in turn can improve prevention and intervention for dysregulated behaviors.

Effects of Observable Parent Alcohol Consequences and Parent Alcohol Disorder on Adolescent Alcohol Expectancies

BACKGROUND

Parental drinking and parent alcohol use disorder (AUD) are known predictors of adolescent positive alcohol expectancies, but their link to negative expectancies is unclear. Research suggests that parent drinking may indirectly predict adolescent expectancies through exposure to parental drinking events. However, exposure to parent negative alcohol consequences may be more relevant to adolescents' expectancies. The present study tested the mediating effect of parent observable negative alcohol consequences in the association between parent AUD and adolescent expectancies.

METHODS

This study used parent and adolescent data from the Adult and Family Development Project. A total of 581 adolescents reported on their alcohol expectancies across 2 waves of data, and their parents reported on potentially observable alcohol-related negative consequences during the first wave. Past-year and lifetime parent AUD were assessed with diagnostic interviews across 6 waves of data.

RESULTS

Mothers' observable consequences mediated the effect of her past-year AUD on adolescent negative expectancies in adolescence, but this effect did not hold at a 1.5-year follow-up. Mothers' lifetime AUD was the only prospective predictor of later adolescent negative expectancies. No father drinking variables predicted expectancies, and all models were invariant across child biological sex. Finally, older adolescent age prospectively predicted higher positive expectancies, whereas the adolescents' own drinking predicted lower negative expectancies.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings, in line with other recent studies, suggest that exposure to mothers' negative experiences with alcohol may counterintuitively normalize negative alcohol effects. This may paradoxically increase risk for adolescents rather than buffering the effects of a family history of parental AUD.